Introduction:

KnowledgeBoard was proud to host the ‘Fringe’ track at KCC Europe in Amsterdam on 7-8 November, 2005. We enjoyed 8 workshops from different KB members and partner networks, all of which were in response to our call for workshops earlier this year.

All of the workshops were different, interactive and stimulating; we had only one ‘sit back and listen’ presentation at the end as a ‘digestif’ and thought leader. Workshop attendance ranged from approximately 10 to 60 (Tuesday morning’s Dave Snowden keynote was a predictably popular alternative!).

All of the workshop hosts wrote a report on their sessions so that we can all share the days’ discussions and atmosphere; they have done a wonderful job; below you can find their workshop descriptions in their own words. I hope you enjoy them and that they give you an idea of our experiences.

Flickr have kindly approved our request to set up a Flickr ‘KnowledgeBoard’ group. If you don’t know about it yet, have a look at it here: it is a central location for all our photos from this event, KB in general, and the future. It is easy and free to register to share your photos on flickr; the KnowledgeBoard group is public and free to join and we warmly invite you to submit KB-relevant photos from your collection.

Best wishes,
Ed
KnowledgeBoard Editor

Full reports listings, thanks and links:

• 1. Open Source KM: Paolo Martinez


• 2. Future Zones: Hank Kune and Ron Dvir


• 3. Knowledge cafe on Sustainability: Edna Pasher


• 4. A visual network: Patricia Wolf, Peter Troxler, Simon Lague


• 5. Amsterdam night


• 6. Market for ideas: Ton Zijlstra


• 7. Employee Knowledge Lifecycle: Martyn Laycock


• 8. Knowledge Worker Handbook: Piers Young and John Curran


• 9. The Knowledge Game: Peter Krieg


• 10. Farewell party: Ed Mitchell and Ron Dvir


• Thanks list


• Links list

1. Open Source KM: Paolo Martinez, Firenze Tecnologia – Regional Knowledge Management network (RKMnet) Project

Free Knowledge?

The big question in this session is what and how can we learn from the free software communities in terms of knowledge creation and sharing? Why are they so successful? What drives them? Pride, honour, other values and rewards... Can such models be applied in organisations where the main issue is the bottom line? Should there be also other values to attract intelligence, talent and stimulate energy and passion in organisations, clusters, regions and communities?

When I was invited in the middle of August 2005 by Ron Dvir to bring some challenging issue for the Knowledge Management Fringe I immediately thought of the open source and free software model adopted by so many “hacker” communities as a very powerful and effective means of transferring and generating new knowledge.

The question I wanted to discuss with practitioners from the knowledge management community was if and to what extent knowledge should be free or proprietary and what are the drivers, values and rewards behind each model also to understand if and how the free software model may also be applied also to innovative organizations, communities…

Although, as a sociologist, I am very interested in studying communities and in particular the free software one, I felt that I needed more information and experience on the issue of intellectual property. I was lucky to hear an excellent presentation from Dr. Roya Ghafele of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) at a conference in Ferrara on the 22nd of October 2005 and could ask her some advice on the best way to define a stimulating debate on the issue.

At the moment I am involved in a network of European regions exchanging best practice on Regional Knowledge Management for innovation and development. The project is called RKM net and is funded by the Interreg 3c programme and partners involved come from the following regions and countries: Basque Country (ES), Central Macedonia (GR), Tuscany (IT), West Midlands (UK), Brandeburg (DE), Central Portugal (PT), Länsi-Suomi (FI), Slovenia and Lituania.

RKM net gives a strong emphasis on the interactive and cognitive dimension of knowledge generation in communities, thereby stimulating the adoption of participatory methodologies to stimulate connections among all the main stakeholders. It was through one of the RKM net meetings in Tampere that I could sense the importance of connectivity and shared stakeholders vision in fostering knowledge exchange, innovation and development.

To stimulate a lively debate during the workshop and gather all possible perspective on the issue of whether knowledge should be free or owned I thought of performing a “four corner exercise”. I learnt this exercise from Bengt Brattgard a Lecturer of Lund University Department of Psychology. Bengt applied the four corner exercise at an innovation Cluster Change and Improvement Workshop in Pamplona on June 2002. The workshop involved a large community of people and organizations involved in innovation projects funded by the EC.

I arrived in Amsterdam two days before the fringe to prepare for the workshop, give some help to the local organizers and spend time with inspiring, wonderful people such as Hank Kune, his wife Jose and Ron Dvir. During the week end we visited a beautiful land art collection in the Kröller-Müller Museum and had the opportunity to discuss very creatively. The flow of ideas was extremely stimulating to prepare the posters that I used in the opening of the fringe. I asked the participants to hold the posters during a short presentation of the objectives and methodology of the mini workshop. Pictures of the introductory presentation may be seen on Flickr (links below).

The room where the Fringe was performed was big and quiet enough and ensured a relaxed and playful atmosphere.

Paolo's introduction was a human powerpoint

The four corner exercise adopted the following steps and I facilitated the process:

• 1. Explanation of the purpose of the four corner exercise to the participants, that is to uncover different views on whether knowledge should be free or owned and to start a discussion form the different standpoints, explaining that the latter objective (the discussion), may be the most important in a developmental perspective. In giving the background and the purpose the difference in organizing a discussion in this way and its advantages were stressed


• 2. Reading out the core question of the workshop: “should knowledge be free?”. To this I gave three alternative answers, each represented by a corner in the room and suggested to the participant that they should choose which alternative is true for their opinion and move there when asked to. The tree statements were read out slowly and we also asked participants to hold out a poster each, one for each statement. These statements were carefully prepared taking care of using the same language as the participants to guarantee understanding and to ensure that the formulated alternatives could be equal so as to have people in all corners.


• The alternatives were:
  a. Knowledge must be totally free. It grows the more it is shared. If protected, locked-in, it loses its value.
  b. To thrive and be profitable knowledge must be totally protected. This ensures investment in research and innovation.
  c. Knowledge should be freely available but resulting products and services should be paid for…
  d. A fourth “open corner” was also envisaged as a place for people with their own formulated alternative.


• 3. The statement and alternatives were read twice and time was given for questions


• 4. Participants were then asked to go to the corners and discuss among themselves why they are in that corner so as to prepare three good reasons to convince people in the other corners to move to theirs. Changing corners is allowed.


• 5. Once the groups feel ready people can ask each other questions and discuss between the groups for short periods.

The Four Corner Exercise in Amsterdam stimulated a lively debate on four different perspectives of knowledge. It was the first session of the fringe and helped the people to get acquainted with each other. At times the discussion became quite heated up as the people had really strong opinions on why they had chosen a specific corner. During the lively discussion that took place between the groups I was positive and encouraging. I stressed the positive aspect of different views and that it is possible to discuss and work together even if we have different views, as long as we respect them.

And to complete the brief summary of the workshop, two short quotations:

1. “Knowledge is not as perishable as other goods and it may be used by vast communities. A religious chant is a part of the common goods of a collectivity, a group of people, and does not finish or expire. On the contrary, the more it is listened to, the more its value increases.” Gruppo Laser eds. (2005) Il sapere liberato. Feltrinelli.

2. “If two people each bring a dollar to the table it may be that one leaves with two dollars, the other with nothing…If two people each bring an idea to the table both will leave with two ideas.” Benjamin Franklyn

The Fringe was a great, memorable, event. I want to thank the organizers, hosts and participants for the great effort and passion!

Paolo Martinez
Paolo's email

2. Future Zones: Hank Kune and Ron Dvir
“Future Zones" are physical and virtual environments which provide opportunities – and the conditions – for thinking about, preparing for and catalyzing the future. In the second workshop on Monday morning, we invited participants to think together about what "Future Zones" are and can be. And because work is – or should be – an enriching experience, one of the questions we posed was: how can future zones also became joy zones?
To open the workshop, we invited the participants on a 10 minute virtual visit to 11 Future Centers in Sweden, Denmark, the UK and the Netherlands. Future Centers are one kind of Future Zone: facilitated collaborative working environments in both the public and private sector, where people are able work on serious matters in a focussed, creative and playful way, dealing with the issues that matter to themselves (as working professions), to their organizations, and to society.
The walls of our working space were covered with a vast array of images – 18 large poster-collages portraying themes from the Tree of Knowledge, Utopia, Innovation Engines for Knowledge Cities, Contactivity, and Joy-zones (just to name a few).

Participants were invited to explore the many photographs, drawings, illustrations and reproductions of paintings, in order to gather ideas and inspiration for table-discussions about how to create Future Zones which are also joy-zones. Encouraged to think about the physical aspects of these zones, the functions they would fulfil, the processes and technologies they would use, and the kinds of people who would visit and work there, the various tables came up with ‘design principles’ and statements describing possible future zones/joy-zones in their own lives, in their work, their neighbourhoods, cities and nations.

A variety of interesting perspectives emerged from the discussions, reflecting concerns as varied as:

• What an ideal working environment is


• Connecting the work in future zones with the real world


• Using joy as “a means to an end”


• Taking the time needed to do serious work


• The importance of destabilizing people, patterns and routines


• Asking ourselves why we work


• Our ability to make the world a better place

What kind of principles and statements emerged from the discussion? A sampling of collaborative thinking?:

• Focus: the creativity and the discussions are always about something


• The disconnect from the everyday environment is important


• The importance of thinking things “all the way through


• A sense of history is essential


• Providing reliable technology with low tech accessories


• Leveraging cultural diversity

The 100 minutes flew by. In its own way, the workshop had become a future zone which was also a joy-zone, enriching the participants and inspiring discussions which continued into the lunch. The organizers, both us whom have been working with future zone concepts for a number of years, were pleased to realize there is still a lot to learn through the power of collaborative insight.

New ideas and continuing discussion are needed. Further activities are being developed. Please keep in contact and feed the growing discussion.

Ron Dvir: Innovation Ecology
Tel +1082-10-81046281 Mobile +1082-54-644110510
Ron’s email
Ron’s website

Hank Kune: Educore
Tel +31 (0)2104 458 880
Mobile +31 (0)650 6101 381
Hank’s email
Hank’s website

3. Knowledge cafe on Sustainability: Edna Pasher

About 30 people explored this topic in a Knowledge Café facilitated by Dr. Edna Pasher on the first day of the Fringe Event. There were different views regarding how serious the state of the planet is. There seemed an agreement that KM could contribute to awareness creation of the need to save the planet for future generations. It seemed too early to create commitment for action.

Pictures from the Café and the brochure of the first Sustainability in Action Workshop developed by the European SoL (Society for Organizational learning) Sustainability Group are available at the KB flickr group.

4. A visual network: Patricia Wolf, Peter Troxler, Simon Lague

Time and place: Monday 8th November, 16.15- 18.25, Amsterdam
Moderators:
Dr. Patricia Wolf, HSW Luzern
Dr. Peter Troxler [ k n w l d g ]

Visualisation and exploration support:
Simon Lague, Intetek

Networking is something that sometimes happens naturally but that – most of the time – becomes more effective and fun if it is supported in a clever way. This is especially true for networking in large groups of people that mostly don’t know each other yet, do not meet regularly and do not share the same background. Our session aimed to improve the networking in terms of quality and intensity through facilitating it a little bit and encouraging to make important information for networking explicit and to encourage communication.

To get started, the around 40 participants have been asked to fill in personal profiles indicating their area of expertise, expertise they were searching for, the countries they like food from and other relevant information.

In a first step, Patricia and Peter asked the participants to split into two groups; the sheets with the profiles were put in two circles on the wall accordingly. Within the groups, each participant had to present their own profile, particularly stating their field of expertise and the areas where they were looking for expert support. The facilitators drew lines for existing relationships concerning expertise on offer and expertise demand between the participants. So a visual network evolved. The participants seemed to be quite enthusiastic about knowledge sharing, so a lot of lines had to be drawn. We must admit that the ten minutes we gave to them for talking to each other on the basis of the connections within the visual network have not been sufficient.

The second task was now to network the two groups: The participants had to find a partner who totally corresponded to their profile. We saw a lot of chaotic interactions and great fun while talking to each other but did not manage to detect the ‘perfect pair’. However, the networking session provided a great basis for talks at the dinner that followed it.

Simon Lague worked overnight to load the profiles into his laptop. By using classification, the next day he was able to show the astonished audience the ‘full’ network and ‘sub’ networks of context (Food, Hobbies, Expertise), allowing clarity of the relationships within.

The big benefit being that participants can now get the network on an USB stick and play around with it (pocket- network as THE service innovation).

For us, the session was a lot of fun, and we hope everybody who participated liked it too. So don’t forget to keep in contact with the people you have been suggested to do so!!

[Note from Ed the editor]: all members who participated are welcome to receive their network view via email if they have not received it already: please email Ed and I will get you a copy ASAP. We have more plans for the future with this!

5. Amsterdam night: Ed Mitchell and Ron Dvir

25 of us gathered at De Beiaard Restaurant where we all contributed 15 Euros each for a cheap and very cheerful dinner in a lovely bar/restaurant with some excellent Dutch, Belgian and German beers. The staff could not have been more helpful and the conversations flowed to a modestly early night (although when I left, Joel Van Hoolandt and his friends were showing no signs of leaving so early!).

6. Market for ideas: Ton Zijlstra

At the start of the second day I (Ton Zijlstra) facilitated the session called Market for Ideas, which was done in an open space format. Open Space is a way of facilitating where any structure is build when needed, and done away with once it served its purpose. So a theme or agenda is only set if the group present feels a need for it. The "rules" of open space are simple:

Whoever is there is the right people, otherwise others would have been there. Whatever is talked about is the right topic, as apparantly the participants feel the need to discuss it:

It starts when it starts
It ends when it ends

And the most important one: the Law of Two Feet. Whenever you think you are no longer contributing to a conversation or discussion, or are no longer learning from it, feel free to walk to another group for another conversation.

The number of participants of this early session was not very high, around 10, also because of the Key Note by David Snowden that took place in the adjacent room. We started by introducing the open space format, which all of the participants turned out to be already familiar with, so we could get to work quickly.

The last session of the first day was a networking session hosted by Patricia Wolf and Peter Troxler. In this session we exchanged interests and found mutual topics of discussion and exploration. At the Market for Ideas we used the results from that networking session as a starting point. We already had been introduced, knew where our interests were, so now could look to concrete points of conversation and discuss how to move them towards action.

All participants wrote ideas, topics and questions they wanted to explore more in-depth down on sticky notes. From these clusters were formed, and people selected the topic or idea they wanted to have a conversation around.

The rest of the session was used for two parallel conversations, each with around 5 participants. One on the future of KnowledgeBoard as a community, and one on the pro's and con's of doing things slow(er).

The conversation about KnowledgeBoard had its starting point in the fact that funding will be ending, and that we would like to find a way to ensure the continued existence of the community. The barriers that exist to let the mature community that KnowledgeBoard now is move onto its next cycle of life were explored, and written down. Ideas on how to breathe new energy into it, such as combining the on-line activities with face to face opportunities more were discussed. Both the Fringe event itself as well as BlogWalk workshops were held up as an example.

"Slow" was the subject of the other conversation. Usually we tend to equate fast with productive, whereas we also know types of work and productivity that benefit from slowness. In a mindmap all kinds of different aspects of "slow" were captured from the discussion.

For the results from both discussions please refer to these photographs at Flickr (larger formats available if you are logged into an account there):

• Slowness


• KB's future


• KB's future

The Fringe event was a real pleasure to be part of!

Ton Zijlstra:zylstra.org/blog

7. Employee Knowledge Lifecycle: Martyn Laycock

Workshop Facilitator:
Martyn Laycock, London Knowledge Network (LKN)

Supported by (LKN members):
Jonathan Gordon-Till, London Development Agency
John Curran, European Knowledge Group

Observer:
Dave Snowden, Director, The Cynefin Centres

Activities: Preliminaries:

1. Jigsaw

As a workshop prelude/Icebreaker a non-conventional Jigsaw (courtesy of Celemi) was offered to the people at each table, all of whom decided (most very readily!) to participate.

Groups worked in different ways, styles to put the Jigsaw pieces together. Comments made were:

• no “picture on the box”


• some straight edges in the middle of the jigsaw caused initial confusion


• just lots of dots/lines: no idea what we were creating, except ‘a jigsaw’


• frustrating but fun


• tough, took quite some time to complete

Each of six groups completed the jigsaw, times between 10 and 21 minutes. About 30 ‘suggestions’ were then made as to what if anything the Jigsaw represented:

• many thought maps of somewhere, something


• several suggested the polar ice-caps taken form the air


• one participants seemed sure there was a hedgehog in there somewhere!


• Several said the overall image represented a dream, a worst nightmare, ‘last night’s hangover’

the puzzling puzzle

Martyn explained after reading out all ideas and suggestions that none came close to what he saw in the overall image.

After further discussion, Martyn showed the full image on screen; then showed distilled from within the overall image a clear image of something that everyone in the room recognised.

He ventured that whenever people present saw this image again into the future they would see the image they now recognised. A large majority agreed.

Martyn’s closing comments on this:

• The exercise proved, as always, a useful ‘ice-breaker’, a team activity, an attractor than created the desire of humans to carry out a task together


• Everyone the world over, it seems, is familiar with Jigsaws, little or no facilitation of the initial task is required


• Participants worked merely with data that seemingly had no form or organisation; once the pieces of the jigsaw had been pieced together there was still no recognisable pattern to the assembled data


• Only once they had been shown the Image represented by the data did participants then see something they instantly recognised

Notes: There are some linkages here with data(initially unorganised, eventually organised) but not enough Information to see what human beings want to see – identifiable patterns, images. Crucially no-one in the room had any prior Knowledge of this exercise! [Ed: so don’t tell anyone else or you will ruin the surprise for people in the future!]

There are links here with “pattern entrainment” (Snowden and others) – once we are shown the Image represented by the data, we see it and, shown it again in the future, we will almost certainly see the same Image again.

We use this Icebreaker to introduce courses on Organisational Complexity and ‘Sense-Making’ to show how it takes time and technique to ‘make sense’ of things that we see and experience in life – and in organisational terms particularly to stress the dangers of treating our organisations as ‘simple’ when in fact they are typically extremely complex, adaptive systems.

2. “The Wisdom of Crowds”

See Powerpoint (attached at the bottom of this article) for details of the book; as an experiment delegates were asked to estimate the number of people represented in the KnowledgeBoard work of art (shown in the PowerPoint).

Of 50 people who estimated one got the ‘right’ answer – 55 – estimates were within a range 35 -250; the person who had estimated 250 explained the task had been misunderstood and withdrew the estimate. Remarkably with the 250 estimate eliminated the ‘mean’ of all estimates was 54.6 – very close indeed to the actual number. So maybe the ‘broad’ canvas of views/estimates when averaged get as close, perhaps closer than any ‘expert’ might? (This is the central theme of the book, which two delegates confirmed to be ‘well worth a read’.)

Activities: Main

3. Using Cynefin complexity techniques to consider “The Employee Knowledge Lifecycle”

Martyn first provided each participant with a copy of November’s “Inside Knowledge” magazine in which LKN Member Clive Flashman of the UK’s National Patient Safety Agency introduces and explains the background to the Employee Knowledge Life-Cycle, developed jointly with Trisha Ford of LKN members Police Information and Technology Organisation, via the auspices of the London Knowledge Network.

The use and application of the Anecdote Circles and Future Backwards techniques is explained in the accompanying PowerPoint.

Delegates worked in six teams using adhesive hexagons to record and arrange their work:

Four teams constructed Anecdote Circles around key points in an individuals career (the ‘employee knowledge life-cycle’) when knowledge-sharing could be encouraged and re-inforced – they were encouraged to look at this from the perspective of the knowledge-workers themselves as well as from an organisational approach to embedding ‘knowledge-sharing’ into organisations.

The remaining two teams used the Future Backwards technique, explained in the PowerPoint, to look both backwards (into the past) and forwards (into the future) and to consider the development of ‘knowledge-workers’ until the present day and up to 5-2000 years into the future.

The outcomes of all activities were filmed and photographed, with the permissions of participants.

The session closed with participants reviewing and discussing the work of their own and other teams within the overall context of the Employee Knowledge Life Cycle.

Feedback (in the form of photographs, video and text) will be summarised and circulated in due course as to the main outcomes of these exercises.

The LKN thanks KnowledgeBoard for putting on such as successful “Fringe” event and Thank All participants for their willing and enthusiastic involvement in what found to be an enjoyable and enlightening experience.

(Martyn Laycock 14-11-05)

We have set up a discussion area around the Employee Knowledge Lifecycle idea on KB in the KB forums - so please come and have a read and let us know your opinion of this new model.

8. Co-creating The Effective Knowledge Worker Handbook: Piers Young and John Curran

Moderators:
Piers Young, Templeton College (University of Oxford)
John Curran, e-konsult

The aim of the session was to explore what ways we could do knowledge work more effectively, both as individuals and in groups, and to use the results as the basis for a handbook for knowledge workers. Piers and John gave short introductions to the session, and Fringers were then asked to brainstorm in their groups the key competencies and structures that they’d want to see in a Knowledge Worker Handbook. After that time, each group presented their results back to the group, and we looked for any common themes or patterns.

Kicking off the session, Piers posed three questions:

• Do you do knowledge work?


• Could you be more effective at it?


• Does your boss or organization think you could improve?

Not surprisingly, everyone thought they did knowledge work, and most thought they could be more effective. Very few people though, felt their boss or organization was in anyway unhappy with them. The tantalizing possibility was that there was a real gap between how knowledge workers manage themselves, and how they are managed. Should the handbook be for knowledge workers, managers or both? This is an issue that probably warrants further discussion.

Most groups saw a distinction between knowledge worker skills and attitudes/behaviours but surprisingly few groups actually recorded many skills on their ‘maps’. One group also introduced the concept of higher order skills. Roughly 90% of the ideas referred to attitudes and behaviours and this probably underlines the difficulty in categorising knowledge work since attitudes and behaviours are so much trickier to assess and measure.

Some behaviours/attitudes identified included:

• Adaptability


• Open to new ideas – thinking out of the box


• Rapid knowledge acquisition


• Not afraid to make mistakes


• Learning and reflecting


• Pattern recognition


• Social intelligence


• Techno-scepticism


• Collaborative networker

One group identified a need to balance collaboration with task focus - too much collaborating and you might not get the job done.

One metaphor that came up a couple of times was that of the Jazz musician.

‘Rhetoric’ was also identified as an important issue in a couple of the groups.

The theme of ‘idleness’ also came up, and was similar to a discussion earlier in the day on ‘slowness’. Idle in the sense that knowledge workers need time to think. Once participant told the story of a CEO who walked in the garden for 30 minutes every day in order to think about key issues but wondered if that behaviour might be acceptable for other employees.

The concept of autonomy also came across strongly though one group linked it also with dependency and indicated that there had to be a balance between the two.

Technology came up quite a bit in connection with both skills and attitudes. Most felt that knowledge workers had to be open to new technology and not afraid of disruptive technologies but one group also indicated that it was also useful to have a healthy scepticism to new technology (use only appropriate technology).

One group also questioned the effectiveness of competencies as applied to knowledge workers since they were often applied inappropriately and were easily misused.

One participant wondered why we didn’t already have a clear understanding of the role of knowledge workers and therefore a clear understanding of the competencies they needed to be effective. From our short session it was clear that the fluid nature of knowledge work makes classifying and describing it non-trivial. There are complex layers and themes within knowledge work and developing a map of the territory is difficult.

Two interesting themes came out in the discussions - first, is it helpful to separate knowledge workers from other workers, and if so are there different categories of knowledge workers?

Fringers appeared to be divided. The ‘yes’ camp argued that the work they did as knowledge workers was qualitatively different from more process-oriented work. The ‘no’ camp, on the other hand, suggested that everyone is a knowledge worker, but the frequency and type of knowledge work they engage in differs. What types of knowledge work did people do? Here, the three types identified were process-driven, creative, and strategic, though the boundaries between them, it was felt, were necessarily blurred.

One final theme that surfaced was the need to balance the potentially maverick behaviours and attitudes of knowledge workers with the needs of the organisations they work within. Concepts such as autonomy, questioning, rapid change, creativity and risk taking are not immediately compatible with many organisations. Maybe there is a certain type of organisational culture though that suits knowledge workers better?

Perhaps we should rename the handbook “How you, your team and your organisation can do better knowledge work”?

Many thanks to all those who participated!

What do you think? Please join the discussion on The Knowledgenetworker wiki.

9. The Knowledge Game: Peter Krieg

[Ed: the only presentation of the two days – Ron was very keen to have a thought ‘leader’ at the end to help everyone digest their interactive sessions with some serious thinking]

My presentation introduced a new paradigm to data, knowledge management and computing as an alternative to the current approach based on the Platonic object paradigm. The idea, implemented for the first time in the Pile system, is not using internal representations (data) of external objects, but rather ‘assimilates’ any input into a global assimilation space of pure relations.

This ‘radical relationist’ method seems much closer to the way our nervous system operates, as the brain cannot be understood as a data storage and management system. Since knowledge is relational, i.e. knowing describes the ability to relate, such an approach holds a lot of promise for knowledge applications.

For a more detailed view see the power point attached to this article, which is a slightly extended version of my presentation. For a more detailed background paper see Radical Relationism on my website.

10. Farewell party: Ed Mitchell and Ron Dvir

After two days of brain-storming, networking, co-creating and other such mentally intensive activities, we collected everyone’s feedback (also attached to the bottom of this article) and celebrated the end of the fringe with a toast to all the participants, the Ark organisers, and ‘Knowledge’ in general.

There was a competition to win a bottle of champagne for the best feedback comment; all of the entries were good (we read them out) but the winner had to be John Curran who offered the champagne to Ron for the amazing KM Art gallery (which you can see in the flickr group). Ron promptly gave it to Lale from Norway who we hope drank it before doing a spot of shopping in the airport on the way home.

Big thanks due to:

• All the Fringe participants: for coming, engaging, and giving us constructive feedback


• Pete, Jon and Rachel from the Ark Group: for their support before and during the event


• All KB members (especially those who offered workshop ideas): we have not forgotten that there are more ideas to explore in the future


• Ton Zijlstra: whose constructive and positive blogging initiated the thoughts for the Fringe between Ark and KB


• The KB people who have worked so hard in the past to get us where we are and develop the springboard we now stand on for the future

Links

• KB group on flickr


• Full list of workshop ideas


• KM art gallery invitation


• The Fringe program


• The original call for workshop ideas on KB


• Ron Dvir’s website


• Hank Kune’s website


• Simon Lague and his magic visualisation tool’s website


• De Beiaard restaurant


• Ton Zijlstra’s blog


• London Knowledge Nework website


• Wisdom of Crowds book information


• KB forum for discussing The Employee Knowledge Lifecycle


• Knowledge Networker wiki


• Piers Young’s blog


• John Curran’s blog


• Peter Krieg’s website


• KCC Europe website


• Ark group forthcoming events in Europe


• Open Space website